Woodhead, a Division of Molex

Company:
Woodhead, a Division of Molex

Product Name:
Network Interface Cards

Product Type:
Industrial Network Connectivity Solutions

Altera Products Chosen:
Cyclone^® II FPGAs
Nios^® II Processors
Quartus^® II Software

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Woodhead Industries, a division of Molex Incorporated, is leveraging Cyclone II FPGAs and Nios II soft processors from Altera^® Corporation (NASDAQ: ALTR), providing OEMs with a new generation of leading-edge solutions enabling greatly improved connectivity to industrial networks.

In prior generation network interface cards, the functions of the Cyclone II FPGA were implemented with multiple components, including an off-the-shelf processor, PCI bus slave controller, SRAM memory, CAN controller, oscillator, and Flash memory, as well as a smaller FPGA. By combining the functions of seven individual devices into a single FPGA, Woodhead achieved new levels of cost-effectiveness and manufacturing efficiency.

OEMs do not need to purchase multiple chipsets or toolkits depending on the network protocol their customers want to use. Using Altera Cyclone II FPGAs; the OEM has access to a cost-effective solution they can purchase directly from the supplier (Altera part number EP2C8F256C8N). The FPGA is then added only once to the OEM’s product hardware design. As their customers request connectivity to specific network protocols, the BradCommunications^TM software core is downloaded directly into the FPGA. This gives the OEM the flexibility to support many industrial network protocols while still maintaining the same hardware design—lowering the maintenance costs associated with the hardware engineering and support. Quicker time to market is also achievable as the knowledge required to understand and connect to industrial networks is left to Woodhead Industries, a leader in industrial network communications for over 20 years.

"Our new network connectivity solutions, based on our BradCommunications^TM software core, use the flexibility and extreme cost-effectiveness of Cyclone FPGAs and the Nios II processor to integrate the capabilities of several off-the-shelf components into a single device.  As a result, Woodhead Industries’ customers benefit from smaller form factor, significant cost savings, and increased reliability compared to alternative network connectivity solutions."

-Ed Nabrotzky
Business Manager, Industrial Communications